20 Websites That Will Make You a Better Chess Player

Anyone who wants to educate themselves to become a better chess player, or just to read latest news about what’s going on in the world of chess will find the following list of websites very useful. This is the list of the chess websites I use to learn, improve and get inspired.

There are 1000s of blogs, portals and websites that talk chess, write chess and live chess. The sites in my list may not be the most known or influential (at least some of them) but they provide high quality content and help you on the way becoming the top player.

Note: the websites are not organized in order by their significance

Chess Lessons:

Online Chess Lessons

OnlineChessLessons offers advice for chess players of all level from novice to advanced. Their articles touch many concepts of chess including strategy, opening systems and master games analysis.

New in Chess

New in chess focuses on chess opening novelties and analytics. They publish a chess magazine which covers many aspects of different openings in great details, which is especially important for competitive chess players.

Chess Publishing

ChessPublishing provides in depth analysis of many opening lines and explains the opening plans behind each line. It also includes a database of more than 20,000 grandmaster commented games which are great for borrowing opening ideas and improving general understanding of the game.

Chess Videos

ChessVideos specialize on production of high quality chess videos which cover many chess topics from openings, to endgame strategy and positional studies. Chess endgame simulation tool is especially useful for practicing certain theoretical endings against the computer.

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Chess Blogs:

Pogonina

Pogonina blog provides many interesting articles covering recent chess events and chess as a sport in general written by WGM Natalia Pogonina and Peter Zhdanov.

Chess Cafe

ChessCafe is one of the oldest and well established chess websites/blogs in the world. They write pretty much about every single aspect of chess including endgame studies, book reviews, detailed openings explanations, etc. ChessCafe also covers current events in the world of professional chess.

Susan Polgar Chess Daily News and Information

This blog is run by GM Susan Polgar. It talks just about everything that has to do with chess. If you’re interested in the game and looking for ways to improve, this place have materials you should definitely check out.

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Chess Tactics:

Chess Tempo

ChessTempo is a number one destination for serious tactics training. They have many sophisticated tactical problems available to solve, varying by difficulty from a complete beginner to a super grandmaster level. They also offer endgame training studies, chess databases and a casual game against a computer.

WFCC

For those looking for a serious tactical challenge, the World Federation for Chess Composition (WFCC) is another great resource for finding novel and extremely difficult chess problems.

Chess Gym

ChessGym offers a large database of chess puzzles of various difficulty. There are many different tactics solving modes available including memorization of positions, timed solving, blitz exercises and so on.

Arves

Arves is an online chess club which specializes on endgame studies. If you are looking to test your endgame problem solving skills, this is a must go site.

Chess Tactics Server

Chess Tactics Server (CTS) provides many 10,000s of chess problems available for you to solve. Based on the number of tries, time and general performance they assign you a ‘tactics solving’ rating based on Glicko system.

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Informational Websites:

FIDE

FIDE is the most official chess website in the world. Enough said.

Chess Base

ChessBase covers all of the international chess news, varying from Anand – Carlsen World Chess Championship Match to recent cheating scandals in Bulgaria.

Chess Vibes

ChessVibes is somewhat similar to the site described above, in other words they also cover chess news from around the world, but just from a little different perspective. Visit and judge for yourself.

Chess Dom

Chessdom is an informational portal which broadcasts live games from all of the major chess tournaments, along with a GM commentary (for most important games) and a build in computer analysis.

Chess-News

Chess-News is an informational website that talks just about everything that has to do with chess tournaments, grandmasters and current rating standings. An excellent resource for chess fans and improvers.

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Online Chess:

Chess.com

Chess.com is the biggest online chess community in the world. It features various chess related forums, online chess games, tactics trainer, opening/endgames analysis, educational videos by titled players, etc.

Chess Cube

Chesscube provides a nice and a very user friendly chess playing environment for players of any strength and skill. They employ virtual currency that can be earned by winning rated games and used to ‘buy’ video lectures on demand.

Free Chess

Freechess (FICS) is one of the largest online playing servers in the world.

ICC

Chessclub.com (ICC) is somewhat similar to FICS but also includes annotated games section, live video lectures, grandmaster’s games broadcasts analysis, etc. Most of the ICC features require paid subscription.

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Bonus:

Here is a little list of the additional chess resources that maybe helpful to some:

Must agree, a good list.. But, and you knew there would be a but… many of the sitesmentioned are not free: NewInChess, ICC, ChessVideos, ChessPublishing, Chess.com, ChessCube all require paid subscription. Else you get nothing, or almost nothing.